Meteorological institutes give the weather conditions prevailing in a region. This information issued cannot be very reliable as there may be sudden changes in the weather. These sudden changes in the weather may cause serious damage to life and property. It is very essential to have prior information of such weather changes especially during trekking, biking or skiing so as to prevent danger. This information is also useful for planning various agricultural operations, particularly rainfed farming.
Conventionally farmers get advice or information through articles in the newspapers, TV and radio programs or direct interaction with the experts. But the queries of farmers are not solved by the general information passed through the media. The ratio of experts to farmers is typically very much skewed and hence, only a small fraction of the total number of farmer population is benefited through direct interaction mode.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,553,299 describes integration of Real Time Kinematics (RTK) global positioning system (GPS) technology with precision farming methodologies to provide highly accurate seeding, cultivating, planting and/or harvesting operations. However, the system does not extend to forming a human or machine generated expert advice to a specific query instantly available to a farmer.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,590,529 describes an individualized, location specific weather forecasting system in which the location of an electronic device is detected; and weather data is generated and transmitted to the electronic device so that subscribers receive weather forecast data specific to their current location.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,212,922 describes a method of using climate data to determine activity index values for a given activity. The method indicates that the activity index values, which may be used to answer specific queries relating thereto. However, the method does not extend to use of various sensors such as soil, weather, camera phone to get time and location specific information and use it to answer queries generated on a mobile terminal and provide a personalized expert advice on the same device through a remote server in his language.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,209,922 describes a system and method used for organization of information and retrieval of information adapted for use in a computer system.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,184,859 describes the use of remotely sensed spectral image data to develop a Vegetation Index file which represents spatial variations of actual crop vigor throughout a field that is under cultivation. A query can be formulated, which is forwarded via email or FTP to a central processing site. A reply is returned via email or FTP to on-side farm personnel.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,171,912 A map of site-specific amounts of a soil nutrient, to be applied in fertilizer to an agricultural field is created using a map of site-specific amounts of the soil nutrient needed to produce maximum possible yield at the particular site.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,047,133 describes a method and system of evaluating crop performance facilitates characterization of the environmental impact of a geographic region or areas within the region for growing plant-life. Environmental measurements are obtained. The method and the system described in this document does not extend to expert or machine generating expert advice remotely based on the sensor data obtained through wireless network and transferring this expert advice to a mobile terminal in response to a farm personnel's query from a mobile terminal in his language.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,990,459 describes a system comprised of hardware, software and business processes for developing an optimal custom farm management plan, and in particular, a single year or multi-year crop selection, acreage allocation, and resource management strategies for production agriculture by using mathematical programming and sensitivity analysis to help the user determine optimal allocations of controllable resources such as land, capital, labor, water, machinery, and chemicals in the context of farm management objectives.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,141,614 describes a computer-aided farming system having a first control system which receives data defining a plurality of parameters and determines a plurality of nodes located at an agricultural field, and determines a condition status associated with each node. The system also has a second control system located on an agricultural machine, which receives data defining the nodes and the condition status at each node and plans a path as a function of the nodes, and determines a desired work operation relative to each node.
United Kingdoms patent 2407230 describes a mobile device such as a personal digital assistant (PDA) or mobile phone to obtain its geographic location, using for example a global positioning system (GPS), and provides the location to a sever, preferably through a wireless connection.
Japanese patent 2001160193 describes a system to report information corresponding to an inquiry from a mountain climber by reporting the rapid change of weather or the like corresponding to registered contents for every mountain climber, avoiding the danger thereof.
None of the above systems mentioned methods and systems extend to obtaining time specific, location specific, crop specific data through sensors and passing it to a remote store for generating expert advice by human or machine for the farm personnel in local language, in response to a query generated through a mobile terminal by farm personnel.